> since lots of my friends and all of my family live in different countries, I'm sure the consequences for me would not be more in-person time with friends and family at all

I have lots of international friends and family. Keeping track of important dates–and calling, not texting–on them and sharing pictures 1:1 via iMessage or Signal or whatever is plenty to maintain ties. In fact, it's probably more meaningful than liking each other's pictures on Facebook. With that returned time, you can now focus on your in-person relationships, which study after study show are vastly more important for our emotional and mental health.

I'm in a similar position, and actually found I had more interaction with family once I got off facebook.

It turned out I wasn't actually interacting with them at all. It felt like I was, having consumed what felt like a few thousand baby photos daily - but we weren't actually communicating, just congrats, happy birthday, like.

Chats, messages and the odd skype call seem to work out much better - if I stop responding, so do they, and it's noticeable. Facebook's bucket of noise approach tricked me into feeling like I was interacting with family when I was actually just scrolling past them.

> I'm in a similar position, and actually found I had more interaction with family once I got off facebook.

I completely agree. I used to be a heavy user of Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat for years and I have been off all those platforms for 14 months now and I noticed that I am more in touch with friends and family than never before and most of them live abroad with at least 6 hours difference!

can those people afford to have that much 'connection' time one on one with more than you?

i never feel i'm interacting with someone on fb if i 'scroll past' or 'like' something. i do feel like that when i actually post a response and have a back-and-forth, much like in person conversations go.

For personal, 1:1 contact, a little goes a long way. On a couple levels.

First off, it really takes very little 1:1 contact to maintain a deep relationship - no more than 10 minutes a month on the phone for some of my most meaningful and long-lasting friendships, sometimes less.

It's true that, without the Facebook feed, I don't get a play-by-play of every single even that happens in their life via the Facebook news feed. I see that as a positive thing - it leaves us with something to talk about when we do make time for each other.

Second, I definitely am in contact with fewer people than when I was on Facebook. The relationships that I have maintained since then have been more fulfilling, though, so, at least as far as I'm concerned, it's still a net positive. (Think of it as giving your social life the Marie Kondo treatment.) I'd like to think that's a two way street - if I'm getting more out of the interaction, then that means I'm probably giving more back, too.

So the end result is that my friends are not, overall, spending that much time interacting with me without Facebook. I can't speak for them, but, I at least view it as an enjoyable way that we can spend some time together, if not physically in the same space. I'd like to think they do the same. It'd be really weird if they thought of me as a friend but didn't actually enjoy having conversations with me.

Well, less ho-hum barely-invested remote friends and family time.

But there's always the opportunity for more quality remote friends and family time -- talking on the phone, video-conference, writing them in more depth in email form (or even snail mail), chatting for long time (as opposed to scrolling through their posts on FB), using those wasted FB hours as they amass to actually pay them a visit, and so on...

If you truly lose connection to "friends", are they really a friend or just a number in your friends list? What are you considering a "friend?" There are a hundred+ ways to stay in touch with people in 2019, and they're all using the same kind of device that works for accessing facebook.

Well, lots of them are truly friends for sure, and I would certainly see them in person whenever there's a chance. But since we don't live in the same country, those chances don't come up that often. Sometimes it could be many years apart. I won't call/text someone that I haven't seen for years unless there're something particular to talk about. Facebook (and other social media as well) are certainly the best way to stay connected.

I agree with you but I also find myself wondering if I should really keep them on facebook.

I have friends from high-school I see every 5 years or so. They were best friends in high-school and I love them but do I need them in my facebook feed? Before facebook I'd have been content with just seeing them every 5 years and maybe sending a holiday card or birthday note/card/email. Now there's this constant distraction of people in my feed of people that I won't see in years, aren't really a part of my life just my memories.

In the last couple of years I've aggressively unfollowed people that are not really a part of my life anymore. That includes beloved friends from high school. Friends that were part of my life in cites I haven't lived in in 35, 25, 15, 10, years ago.

Does that make me bad for not embracing 2019 and being able to see those people's activities forever no matter how remote and unconnected we now are? Or is it facing reality that by moving far from them they really aren't a part of my life except for fond memories and the occasional visit if we happen to be in the same part of the world? Everyone will have to answer that for themselves.

I feel a little guilty when I "unfollow" them but I remind myself this whole idea of following every person I ever met in my life via my facebook feed is a new thing and that I got by just fine in the past with a few letters or postcard a year and not daily updates. I think I'm down to 25 or less people I'm following out of ~1000 people I've added on facebook.

Friendship strengthen through casual contact. A social network websites gives us that. You can casually take part and share every day life.

Exactly, and if you or they are in town you can actually meet up.

I ended up successfully replacing Facebook with a combination of group text and group LINE message to talk to friends and family,whether they live near me or no. I don’t miss it.

> Less political knowledge, but also less partisan fever.

I'd agree with the second part, not sure about the first part of the sentence... Political knowledge would be something you acquire by direct participation in the political discourse, watching politicians, by reading the news perhaps, by reading books on history and other topics. But on Facebook? Every political post there comes with a blatant agenda. Instead of an informative discussion, you get an echo chamber and often regurgitated semi-educated opinions borrowed from other people, by (mostly) insufficiently educated people, appeal to emotion, etc.

By that logic, you couldn't have had connections to friends and family who lived not-near you before social media, right?

No, but by that logic such connections existed less before Facebook etc. And this is indeed probably true. And I say that as somebody who doesn’t use Facebook any more, and who lives abroad.

What does "connection" mean to you in this instance? That's the sticking point here. If a "connection" is simply "I can see a post written by that person every now and then" well, I'm gonna go ahead and say ridding yourself of that won't actually harm you socially. I absolutely question self-defined "relationships" that are held together by mass broadcasts of carefully crafted messages. For me, that's not a relationship. Granted, that's not a decision for me to make, but regardless. I fear we've all redefined what a "relationship" is without actually considering the ramifications.

By connection I mean any relevant/enriching piece of communication. Furthermore, apologies for being a bit flippant but if the only things you see on your Facebook friend feed are empty fluff then maybe you need to find more interesting friends. The medium itself may not be particularly enlightening but it doesn’t fundamentally prevent meaningful interactions.